


The Small Rain

by speakmefair



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Cheerfully Casual Violence, Damp, Gen, In-Jokes, Rain, Soldiers, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrol stinks, and so does Arthur's sagum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Small Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sasha_b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/gifts).



Arthur was nineteen years old, had a command he'd inherited as much as he'd earned (and dear Christ on the Cross, had he earned it, body and blood of all that was holy, he had earned it just by getting through each day without strangling with his bare hands a single member of his imported, impossible, balking troop), and was thoroughly miserable, in ways he couldn't even adequately describe in the privacy of his mind.

He hated patrols.

He hated the jokes he would never be a part of (because of his status, because of being Roman, because none of them actually liked him, and he hated them all the more because he didn't know which would be the strongest reason on any given day).

He hated the Wall.

The Wall was cold, and wet, and rain had become almost a living thing rather than a freak of the weather.

Then again, the Wall was always either cold or wet, and usually both. It was cold because of the wind, even in summer. It was wet because even when it snowed, that turned into wet (or rather into slush, and then froze, and then melted down the back of someone's neck and got cursed), and when it rained it was generally time to think of building boats.

Because it didn't just rain. It _Rained_. It rained with a sort of focused, concentrated effort that wasn't usually possible unless in a storm. It didn't even bother to exert itself with a downpour, it just — rained. Heavily, consistently, and unstoppably.

And no-one even exerted themselves enough to curse it.

"Well, it doesn't freeze the wine jugs," Bors had said once, and that laconic summary seemed to be the general approach.

It drove Arthur insane.

He wanted to yell "So as long as you can drink, it's all fine, is it?" except that, well, the answer was in the question and his irritation would probably be either ignored or yet another thing they put down to his being Roman or Christian or too young to have any authority save the kind his title so tenuously gave him — or maybe just the fact that they universally forgave him any outburst of that nature because they felt sorry for him, given as he was a man with such a stick up his arse (and yes, he _could_ translate that much, thank you all very much) — and so he never bothered.

He really, really didn't want to give them all yet another thing to commiserate about behind his back.

It wasn't fair. He knew he shouldn't think like that, firstly because it wasn't something any grown man past his fourteenth birthday should let himself consider, and secondly because there was nothing he could do about it, and thirdly because —

Well, thirdly because who on earth went as far as 'thirdly', anyway?

(Thirdly was actually because Arthur hated sagums with a deep misery that he was never quite capable of putting into words even to himself, but since he couldn't find the words that would adequately express the depths of his loathing, he'd stopped trying.)

So he never talked about that even to himself in the middle of a sodden, smelly, miserable night.

Such as this one.

He hunched up a little further into the heavy, disgusting depths of his sagum — which he was quite sure had first come into being somewhere around the time of Marius Himself, and certainly hadn't improved in the intervening centuries — and tried to go deaf, or not think about a ban on filling any possible container with wine, or just ban everyone with him from existing.

"Hey." A companionable nudge against his back from someone's hand. "You not joinin' us, then?"

Gawain, dripping wet as they all were, and smelling strongly of smouldering peat and wine and something slightly singed. Presumably he'd been in charge of getting the pathetic little lumps of dried old rotten moss to light.

Arthur swallowed down everything he really wanted to say in favour of a quick shake of his head.

"Eh, no, you should, 's warmer —"

"Leave 'im be," Bors rumbled, kind and sleepy. "Warm's no good for alert now, is it?"

"Good for the bones —"

"Warm _my_ bones," someone said, sly and distant. Arthur couldn't make out who.

"And if I _hit you in the face_ , will that warm you up? It will me."

Bright and cold and pellucid clear in the midst of foggy damp and peat-smoke and persistent rain, that was Lancelot's coldly-cheerful, scathing voice, unmistakable, carrying across mockery and an attempt at inclusion alike.

"Oh ho ho, who's got the sulks then —"

"Who's got the first watch, then," Lancelot retorted. "Get on with wallowing in your fug, I've better things to do."

"No sheep here, Lancelot —"

"Beeeeh," said someone else, and giggled. There was the sound of a thump, a yelp, and then some more thumps. Arthur tried to ignore it all, and concentrated on not getting too much water down the back of his neck.

"Ugh," Lancelot said after a bit, satisfied and half-annoyed and far-too close, settling down beside Arthur with a grunt. "Arthur, that thing stinks."

"I noticed," Arthur said, too tired even to be sarcastic.

"Good for you," Lancelot said, and snickered quietly. Arthur waited for him to get up again, and finally turned his head to look, when Lancelot showed no signs of moving.

Lancelot was as wet as any of them, dark hair dripping lankly into his eyes, and one sword resting easily across his crossed legs, the other lying beside him, wrapped in proofed leather.

"Watch, remember?" he said, following Arthur's look. "The thing you're not doing, Commander, why not go and —"

"I wouldn't be able to sleep," Arthur admitted.

"Too cold, too wet?" It sounded almost like sympathy, if one ignored the malicious tint to Lancelot's voice. "Go sit by that half-arsed buggery of a fire, then. Better than nothing." He sucked on a skinned knuckle, thoughtfully. "Ow. Hard face, Gawain's got."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have made your ovine proclivities so well known, then, and you wouldn't have been forced to defend the honour of your latest lady-love," Arthur said before he could think, and Lancelot blinked at him for a long moment, before breaking out into a grin that utterly transformed his face into something surprising and a little sweet and utterly delighted.

"My. My — my _ovine_ — ha!"

He bumped his shoulder into Arthur's, still laughing. "Not bad, Commander," he said, and the title was utterly free from mockery. "Not bad."

"I try," Arthur said dryly, and Lancelot's laughter softened into a smile.

"I know that," he said, and moved in a little closer, warm and companionable, wrinkling his nose at the sagum. "I know you do. We all know."

It sounded like another of his bitter jokes, but his rain-drenched face was unusually sincere, and he was still smiling.

Arthur blinked at him, and tried to frown, but Lancelot's smile was contagious, and he found himself returning the expression.

"Here," Lancelot said then, and drew out a wine-flask from the depths of his sodden cloak, making a production of wiping off the lip on the wet cloth. "It's not bad."

And Arthur hesitated, tried to remember why he should not weaken, tried not to think of all the ways this could be yet another test — and looked at Lancelot's raindrop-rimmed eyes, tired and a little red-raw with the peat-smoke, and one of them slightly bruised from where Gawain had obviously returned his pummelling with interest — and for once, utterly sincere.

"Thank you," he said stiffly, and took the flask, and drank.

"Welcome," Lancelot said easily, and settled in, waiting out his watch.

After a while, Arthur slept, his head on a bony, mail-clad, sodden-cloaked shoulder —

And woke to feel no guilt.


End file.
